It is my great privilege to show you the cover for our newest book: Monsters! Incidental Wedding Guests. It is an urban fantasy romance, and it’s coming to bookstores on June 14, 2023!
Cover art by the incomparable @pinkpiggy93/@flowerraven93. Cover design by Éric Desmarais and Nathan Fréchette.
What happens when superheroes plan a wedding? Monsters, that’s what.
Kennedy and Jason are ready to get married. They just have to deal with evaporating monsters first. Available for pre-order soon. (Keep an eye on our blog by signing up for posts in your inbox!)
We watched this as a family last year and I loved it (although I don’t remember it specifically or how it differs from others of the same name). I look forward to watching it this week.
Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano, learning guitar
Crochet
On break
Basic Information
We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.
Printing words
Download material
Counting objects/math-type activities
Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –(in download material)
Storytime
Activity
Make toilet paper roll art (link for ideas) Make zine (plan and backgrounds)
Pegasus loved this movie. He’s also familiar with it. He was extremely excited to write his letter to Santa.
Dance
I haven’t been doing much formally for this one. I’ll put music on and he’ll dance to it unprompted. (repeated from last week)
Music
He has been diligent about practising his scales and doing the exercises from the book. He also says out loud what the scale letters are as he plays them.
Crochet
We’re on break for now.
Basic Information
We alternated between listening to videos for the days of the week and months of the year (M, W, F), and attempting to put them in order with the pieces of paper (days on Tuesday, months on Thursday). He sang along unprompted. He didn’t need any prompting with the days of the week this week.
Printing words
He enjoys doing this activity and completed it on the second day this week. He’s working on making his letters smaller and more contained.
Counting objects/math-type activities
He did well on his counting. He didn’t need help with the printing of the numbers.
Storytime
We didn’t read last week’s French books. Sickness took over our household.
Activity
Write letter to Santa – Santa sent the letters for both kids to the printer at the end of last week. Pegasus was super excited, but reluctantly agreed to wait until Monday to fill it out. He was very enthusiastic about writing it and worked very hard to fill it out.
Geography – we sat down with an atlas and I explained how to use it and how everything affects everything else. Pegasus was very enthusiastic and remembered the Rockies long enough to tell Éric when he got home from work. While sitting on my lap, he thought that the US being called Canada’s pants was hilarious. 😉
Bake cookies – we have 8 types of cookies we want to bake this season. This week, we made my grandmother’s shortbread. I had planned on making a second cookie on the Friday, but both kids were sick, so we left it at just the one for this week. He already understands about the measurements, but I got to explain how to be precise (to my standards). We got a little messy. 😛
This is the Hallmark Christmas formula at it’s best. I appreciate that they took a little time to show how hard it can be for gay men to date and the trauma involved.
Score: 0.5
Characters
I was worried at the beginning because the main character was a complete ass, but once he calmed down and started to open up about his feelings, he became a lot better. He was actually quite charming and funny when he wasn’t trying too hard to be a jerk.
The handyman next door who just wanted a family was charming and adorable and the two of them had pretty good chemistry.
The kids were cute if forgettable and the rest of the cast was good.
Score: 1
Dialogue
Some of the dialogue was terrible and the only thing that kept them from making the movie unwatchable was the earnestness and quality of the actors.
There are also a few cute quips and lots of family adorableness.
Score: 0.5
Visuals and Music
The movie was well filmed and showed that each shot was well thought out from a framing point of view. It bugs me in these movies when people leave on vacation and they still have food out. In this one his popcorn machine was still filled with popcorn.
Early in the movie the little girl wins a massive quantity of stuffed reindeer toys; from that point forward there are stuffed reindeer in almost every scene and it was a lot of fun looking for them.
The music was standard and did it’s job.
Score: 0.5
Fun
This is a Hallmark Christmas movie. You should know in advance if you’re into that sort of thing. I thought the romance was fun and the movie was easy to watch with little to no forced drama.
Score: 1
Overall
A nice gay twist on the Hallmark Holiday movie formula with two actors that had great chemistry. It’s cute, fluffy, and warm; everything a holiday romance should be.
It’s a great interview and gives you a great insight into how she works and does so many fantastic things.
Jen says:
I was interviewed for Speculating Canada yesterday!! It was so much fun.
We discuss Queer writing, the interrelationship between craft-making and writing, writing with a community, and writing with a partner (specifically my husband).
It’s a long interview, about 50 minutes, so get comfy!
It certainly made me blush from all the compliments.
To be completely honest, I have ZERO memory of this movie. I watched it once the year it came out, and that was it. However, I have fond memories of the bits I do remember, and I look forward to it being this week’s movie.
Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano, learning guitar
Crochet
On break
Basic Information
We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.
Printing words
Download material
Counting objects/math-type activities
Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –(in download material)
Storytime
Activity
Draw button designs on the computer (drawing and saving on computer) Make buttons for Xmas gifts (cutting and using a button maker) Make Xmas tags from old Xmas cards (cutting and printing)
Pegasus doesn’t really remember Raya very well, as evidenced by his confusion about why the word “dragon” was one of his printing words this week.
Dance
I haven’t been doing much formally for this one. I’ll put music on and he’ll dance to it unprompted. (repeated from last week)
Music
He has been diligent about practising his scales and doing the exercise from the book. He also says out loud what the scale letters are as he plays them.
Crochet
Pegasus completed the poncho this week! He worked very hard and is very happy with the end result.
Basic Information
We alternated between listening to videos for the days of the week and months of the year (M, W, F), and attempting to put them in order with the pieces of paper (days on Tuesday, months on Thursday). He sang along unprompted. He didn’t need any prompting with the days of the week this week.
Printing words
He enjoys doing this activity and completed it on the third day this week.
Counting objects/math-type activities
He did well on his counting. He needed me to write a 5, but only asked for a 6 traced in the air, and he knew what a 7 looked like.
Storytime
We read last week’s French books on Monday at the dentist while we were waiting. Then we got new French books after the dentist. He learned some new words, like ‘dans’ and ‘ciel’.
Activity
Plan a menu for Boun’s Shrimp Boat – I felt like this was too limiting, so instead, we made a menu for Pegasus’s Restaurant! He had fun planning the menu items (I wrote them down verbatim) and then I helped him search for images in Canva. He shrank them and placed them in the appropriate places.
Make fruit jerky – This turned out pretty well. It was tasty, but we had a hard time flattening it so that it had even consistency. Pegasus did pretty much everything himself, too, which is excellent!
Make celebration banner – We changed this to an invitation to the opening of his restaurant. I wanted to explain how to keep design consistent in theme across similar products.
